"During the weekend, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and United Auto Workers union officials announced an agreement had been reached to consider beginning contract negotiations for Foxwoods casino dealers under tribal laws while the tribe’s legal challenge of union certification proceeds.

It is a suggestion we made in an editorial earlier this year, and we applaud both sides for taking this important step. We hope it might result in a more friendly resolution to what has been a stormy relationship between the two.

In our previous editorial, we acknowledged the issue of tribal sovereignty is an important one for the tribe and the tribe’s efforts to protect its sovereign rights were justified. The outcome of the legal challenge to the tribe’s claim of tribal sovereignty will be precedent-setting, with sweeping impact across the nation.

However, since tribal law does provide a mechanism for union negotiations, we hoped both sides might use that as a basis of demonstrating a good-faith effort while the sovereignty issue proceeds."

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Our view: Tribe, union can gain from talk (The Norwich Bulletin 10/15)